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Wednesday, 16 January 2013

QRF 15mm Modern British infantry review

As I wanted to
field a modern British infantry platoon for Force on Force, I looked at the
then-available ranges, namely Old Glory’s and QRF’s before selecting the
latter.

The Old
Glory range seemed adequate (although some of the poses are hit or miss as
usual with OG) but the packaging made me pass them over. Not only is the actual pack content unclear
but ordering something like 150 figures and using 1/3rd to field a platoon
didn’t seem like a really good idea even though OG’s per figure prices are quite
competitive. Flytrap
Factory has since released a pack of “Royal British Marines” which look good but are limited to small
arms at the moment.

On to QRF’s
figures! These are sold in packs of 8 figures covering the whole gamut of smallarms and support weapons which has the advantage of minimizing the number of leftovers. While the photos
on QRF’s website do give an good idea of the content of each pack, they are not very detailed. The close up photos at the bottom
of this post should give you a clearer idea of what they look like.

Now, as I
said on TMP, these figures are not the best in the world. To clarify that
statement, they are not the sort of heroic 15mm figures with crisp, exaggerated
details that pop and are sure to get oohs and aahs on the usual forums. But
while they may be a tad underwhelming in their bare metal, they are good gaming
figures as opposed to cabinet attractions. ;-)

The
strongest point of these figures is the attention to relevant detail to make
these actually look like British squaddies rather than generic grunts with
different helmets and weapons. The web gear is spot with most of the pouches
worn on the lower back, as are the weapon-carrying stances and finally the
poses are coherent with either stationary firing or advancing at a patrol rate.
So there are none of the wooden poses reminiscent of left-foot forward Minifigs,
no Rambos wildy chucking grenades nor that single figure running around like Bolt’s
second cousin while everyone else strolls along. Another good point is stature: the figures are very consistent is size and you don't have underfed midgets and overweight giants rubbing shoulders.

Overall, the
sculpting is good although there are some issues with some figures such as
miscast feet (the result of very thin bases), soft detail on some of the faces (a
couple are downright mushy) and a few oversize hands. All the detail that needs
to be painted is there and sharp enough to make painting easy. The weapons are
as close to scale as possible and may seem a bit thin and fragile if you are
used to the oversize ones found on some other ranges.

To
conclude, choose another range if you want to impress the boys on Frothers
(not that they’d be impressed by 15 mils anyway ;-). But look no further if you
are looking for good figures that really capture the look of British infantry
on campaign.

Painting notes

Below is the list of the paints I used to reproduce the faded Desert DPM look. The camo pattern itself was quite simple: a basecoat of Vallejo 819, a heavy brown wash for shading, a heavy drybrush of Vallejo 819 again to clean up the base, random squiggles of Vallejo Air 35 Camo Light Brown overlaid with another lighter layer of random squiggles of Vallejo 819 to break it up.

I opted for olive green webbing purely as artistic licence and then found out that olive green webbing was in fact used with Desert DPM uniforms before matching webbing became available! Which goes to show that artistic licence and MoD budget constraints sometimes match.

Antennas were added the web pouches of section leaders and assistant section leaders, either left or right side to differentiate between the two.

Love the walk through. I have actually just bought the 150 from Old Glory, also for playing FoF. I'm happy enough with the miniatures but there are several stances where I have no idea what I'm looking at...especially the Infantry Weapons pack.I like the small bases you use, I see many inch wide ones that look like a mini diorama. One thing I've done with mine is put a wash over the feet, then dry brush.... It effectively puts a shadow on the ground around the boot which helps it stand out from the base

Thanks for the comments. I use small and thin metal washers about 15mm across because I like my skirmish bases to be as neutral as possible. Diorama bases are fine of dioramas but lugging rocks and tufts of grass around when the figures are on a rooftop is a little strange. ;-)